


Collide

by HawthornBlood141



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, a little something before the show comes back next week, and then up to episode 10, but then fluff, same universe as Elastic Heart, set after Jemma comes back from Hydra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:37:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawthornBlood141/pseuds/HawthornBlood141
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma is trying to figure out where she stands with Fitz after she comes back from HYDRA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Collide

**Author's Note:**

> So, this little fic began with full angst and only angst, until Collide by Howie Day turned up on pandora and fluff poured out. Hope you'll enjoy, it sure was a fun ride to write this !

_Even the best fall down sometimes_

_Even the wrong words seem to rhyme_

_Out of the doubt that fills my mind_

_I somehow find_

_you and I collide_

 

_Don't stop here_

_I've lost my place_

_I'm close behind_

 

 

...

 

She comes back and he got better while she was gone.

Jemma is a whirlwind of confused emotions. She’s overjoyed that Fitz’s condition has improved, yet guilt is still eating her up. She got out unscattered, because she had the oxygen, because she’s _more than that._

There is also a hint of something else. Something that starts at the pit of her gut, accelerates her heartbeat and makes her want to throw up.

She left, he got better.

Jemma doesn't understand why it makes her so dizzy. This was her plan all along. Her presence was preventing him from recovering properly so she removed herself from the equation. It worked. Theory proven. Simple.

So why does she feels so hollow.

…

She spends her time walking on eggshells around him. Careful not to touch him, not to finish his sentences. She has to repress everything from their relationship that used to be natural and familiar.

For ten years they’ve been alongside each other all the time. Ten years of easiness and speaking each other’s mind.

Ten years and now, they practically are strangers.

…

At night, it’s difficult push away her memories of him. She’s known Fitz since they were seventeen. They basically grew up together, thrown into the hard cold world as a team. Combined and twice as smart.

They built themselves together, always knowing that the other one would be there to catch them if they fell.

When she did fall, he wasn’t the one to catch her, but he saved her all the same.

In her dreams, she falls and he doesn’t save her.

...

****  


It aches, though she does her best to hide it. She became good at lying after all.

_Don’t they all have a darker shadow now?_

Jemma holds herself outside of the lab, unable to get in.

Fitz and Mack are inside, leaning over some mechanical device she doesn’t recognise. Like almost always these days.

The lab used to be where she felt the most comfortable, where she’d be at home. Of course then, Fitz and her were just _Fitzsimmons_ , one name, one entity.

They’ve been one for so long that she doesn’t remember how to be two again. How to be herself, alone and standing her grounds.

She feels out of place no matter where she is now.

The only thing she is sure about is that she tries her best to make the world a better place, to protect the people she loves.

_No matter what,_ she thinks as she sighs. Even if it means that the relationships she has are endangered, or that she ends up being hurt.

She watches Fitz fitfully. He is focused on the device in front of him, turning it around and half smiling at something Mack said.

The tea cups she’s been holding now gone cold.

Maybe she’ll try another day.

…

Skye confronts her one morning.

“You know you can talk to me if you want, right?”

Jemma almost bursts into tears. Her façade slowly cracking. She hadn’t realised how lonely she felt and it finally hits her. Words get stuck in her throat so she hugs Skye instead.

When the tears have stopped, she only murmurs, “I just want my best friend back.”

Skye eyes soften then, “I know. He’s getting better though. Give him time, he’ll be there.”

…

She works late.

Jemma finds it easier to fall asleep that way.

Truth is that she drives herself to exhaustion so her mind is too tired to haunt her in her dreams.

…

She reads his medical file when no one is watching. Monitoring his improvements closely.

Rereading the report pages of the weeks following her departure with an ache in her chest.

_He got bad. Worse, before he got better._

She stares at the words, some of them engraving themselves in her brain like a stab wound. _Psychotic haze. Hallucinations. Insomnia._

She keeps reading and finds that he slowly but surely picked himself up. Without her.

She’s proud of him, oh so so proud.

But it also hurts. So much.

…

She brings him tea again.

This time he’s working on one of the ICER and the sight is so familiar that she’s immediately at ease. She doesn’t allow herself to step back.

With her brightest smile, she enters the lab, and greets him. He seems surprised at first, but then his eyes lands on the two cups in her hands and his expression soften.

She puts it in his desk, “I- I added milk and extra sugar in yours. I hope it’s okay.”

That’s how he’s always taken his tea, _before,_ and she is suddenly overcome with the fear that this is not how he takes his tea anymore. The idea that something so trivial has changed shakes her more than she anticipated. Before she can worn herself out in overanalyzing it, he nods and thanks her.  

Relief washes her. Maybe not all has changed.

...

_What is bread in the bone will not out of the flesh._

That’s what her dad always told her. Turns out it’s true.

There’s work that needs to be done. They have no other choice than to fall back into old rhythms in order to find the city. They need to find ways to study the field once they find it. The DWARFs need updates.

It’s easy yet still restrained.

…

They are brainstorming how to enter the temple. Her mind is blocking off Mack’s possessed eyes and the echoing sound his body made when he fell. She needs to fix him.

Fitz sounds beaten and she hates that maybe she did that to him. Because she left when he needed her, and now, the one person he’d gotten really close with, that made him better, may be dead.

She can’t let this happen.

She’ll do anything, _anything._ He gets up, away from her and she refuses to let it affect her.

But all the sudden, it clicks.

_They_ click.

They build a theoretical explanation together. He still believes Mack is dead, but she denies it, for both their sake. She fights back, fires a well rounded argument back at him. He sits back in front of her, mouth gaping.

She beams. Once again, she remembers that they are twice as smart together than apart. Judging by the way he looks at her, he probably thinks so too.

It’s a small victory. One that won’t last. They’ll need to nurture it and re-learn how to work _with_ each other.

They both got stronger separately. If they can manage to channel their new strengths and combine them with old ones then maybe, just maybe, they’ll be okay.

…

Skye has powers now, and they’re trying to understand them.

Fitz and her work well together and they’re definitely more ease in their exchanges.

There’s something else though. Something Jemma’s been pushing at the back of her mind ever since she dragged him up from the bottom of the ocean. She had been worried sick then that he had died. What if she had lost him that day?

And then, there’s her talk with Bobbi.

_Is the ride worth it?_

Her mind is a whirlwind of _what ifs_ and _should not._ Can she even allow herself to think about it? Does he still feels that way about her?

She experienced life without him. And even though she now understands that she may have needed it as much as he did, she doesn’t want to go through it again.

He made it clear though, that he needs space. Every time she walks near the garage, she cranes her neck trying to get sight of him.

One morning, she wakes up and decides that she needs to do something. She’s been dancing around it for too long. She enters his new workspace with determination and a cup of tea for him. She speaks before he even has time to say hi, it’s the scariest she’s ever been.

“I’m a little slow. But if you- if you can be patient with me, I-I think I’ll catch up. Soon.”

She turns around before he can process what she said. Maybe if she goes fast enough, she will be able to forget that she may has just ruined the most important relationship of her life.

He finds her on the Bus two hours later. She is sitting pensively in front of one of the pods.

“You can’t just say that and leave!” he yells, furious before sitting down next to her.

For the longest time they’re quiet. Their knees are touching and she finds herself on the verge of crying.

“I miss you,” she whispers, unsure he heard her.

But he must have because the next thing she knows he grabs her hand and strokes it lightly. “Why did you come here Jemma?”

“It’s where everything changed,” she shrugs avoiding his gaze, “I thought that maybe, if I came back here, I would be able to grasp a little bit of us, of _Fitzsimmons_.”

He doesn’t reply and for a moment she thinks it’ll just end here, but he surprises her. It’s a new feeling that she finds she likes.

“And here I thought, I- I was the one that was supposed to hate… change,” he smiles and hits her shoulder softly.

“Also,” he adds, “that the stupidest thing I ever heard you say.”

Her head jerks towards him. “Oh yeah? And what about that time in SciOp when you told me that naming one of the DWARFs _Snow_ was a ridiculous idea?” she replies offended, “I perfectly remember you saying ‘ _she’s not a dwarf Jemma_ ’ and then you-”

“Jemma!” he raises his hand and smirks. She comes with the sudden realisation that he’s the most attractive she’s ever noticed. She wants to wipe off his smug knowing face and shut him up with a kiss.

“First, this is so _not_ how I sound,” he teases, “And secondly, I was just saying that, because-”

She kisses him. She barely has time to register the softness of his lips against her before she backs down and blushes, warmth colliding her insides.

****  


Well, _this will definitely change things._

He looks at her like in shock and she wonders if her instinct was wrong.  She’s about to apologise and plead him to forget about it, claim it was a mistake. But then he asks her if he can kiss her, and she must have heard wrong because Leo Fitz just demanded to kiss her.

_Is the ride worth it?_

__

The words echo in her mind as her lips touches his once again.

She doesn’t know the answer to that question, and it doesn’t erase her fears, but it took her a long time to realise that the only person she was willing to try with, is Fitz. And as she feels his smile against her lips, Jemma’s ready to bet he’s on the ride with her too.

 


End file.
